The only weapons of mass destruction I have ever experienced are the holes left by Donegal county council workers. When I was growing up these weapons were two a penny and any inspector worth his salt could have found plenty of them on any old road in any old part of the county.

The natives were always somewhat amused and bewildered as to how precisely these weapons were manufactured. They could never spot anyone working at them. There were lots of sightings of men standing around with spades and shovels, but you had to try hard to find someone who had actually experienced a sighting of these holes being dug. The closest would have been a man spitting into one hand and then into the other hand before grabbing the shaft of the shovel and implanting it firmly in the ground. Anything after that was somewhat of a state secret.

All that changed when the country struck oil, in the guise of a Tiger, and the place had to be quickly transformed into a modern European country. The roads contracts were awarded to a number of large foreign companies. They came from the north mostly and, even though the customs and the loyalties of the natives would have been somewhat different to what they were used to, the big bosses and the shareholders could read an economic spreadsheet better than most. They didn’t have to be told that there is money in muck and when the time was right they moved, lock, stock and barrel to where the greatest amount of muck was being shifted. And they didn’t stop at Donegal. They are now to be found hard at work in every one of the 26 counties that they would have once described as Eire. Credit where credit is due. You have to admire their sense of adventure and entrepreneurship and their healthy bank accounts. There is little room for sentiment or political dithering in business.

Meanwhile, the county council workers have transplanted and transmogrified themselves into the politicians who are sorting out Northern Ireland. Every corner you turn at the moment you run into men standing with shovels looking into big holes. There have been enough holes dug in the last few months to give a decent burial to a whole generation of politicians.

All the parties have done their fair share of digging, but leading the way in the creation of these weapons of mass destruction is the Ulster Unionist Party. On the 16th day of June of the year 2003 they have plans to dig a hole of such proportions that it might accommodate their whole party, the Good Friday Agreement and even the whole peace process. As they traipse out of the venue at the end of the meeting you can imagine them spitting in one hand and then the other hand as they describe it as a “grand day’s work”. Without a second thought they will ensure that the holes remain intact. If some of them have their way, they will dig the holes even deeper. And they will do this at a time when there is enough political material available to cover most of the mess that we have managed to create during the last 80 years.

Some of these unionists will point to the obduracy and continuance of the IRA as the reason for all this and it should be admitted that the IRA has had a lot of shovels in a lot of holes. But any decent commentator will tell them that the IRA is trying to go away and that the going is being slowed rather than hastened by the obduracy of unionism. Others will talk of too many concessions to the IRA. Well, to hell with the IRA. It is long past time that nationalists looked unionists in the eye and told them that there are no concessions, either in the Good Friday Agreement or in the Joint Declaration. There is not one single concession in either document. What is there is a set of decent and honourable compromises that allows two warring tribes to stand beside each other as equals. That is the only way we can make this place work. Whether it takes two months, or two years, or 10 years that will always be the price of peace.

Unionism has shouted loud and long and, whether they know it or not, it has been heard by nationalists and even by the IRA that a deep hole has to be dug into which all their weapons must be dumped and allowed to rust. Nationalists need to shout loud and long and unionists need to hear that there is no going back to superiority or exclusion. That, too, needs to be put down a big hole and allowed to rot.

I have little doubt that at the meeting on June 16 there will be some of the shareholders and maybe even some of the big bosses of the road contractors who have built the new big roads down in the 26 counties.

It is time a few of them took their courage in their hands and looked their colleagues in the eye and told them to catch themselves on. It is time they told them a few home truths, that there is no future or prospects in more holes. It is time they challenged them to throw off their coats and grab a few long handled shovels. It is time they told them to get stuck into it beside their nationalist friends and neighbours and with a good spit into one hand and then a good spit into the other hand, to start filling in a few holes.